


A Life Briefly in the Sky

by rm (arem)



Series: Annie [3]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arem/pseuds/rm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trip from Paris to Berlin is thirteen hours if Jack drives a little too fast and they don't stop for lunch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life Briefly in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in 1929 and is, if we have any canon for that year, probably AU.
> 
> Thank you to Tsarina for giving this a once over before I posted.
> 
> In case anyone is counting, today the trip from Paris to Berlin is about nine and a half hours, barring traffic. Thirteen is my random guesstimate based on what I know of cars and roads of the era, which probably isn't enough.
> 
> Croydon is the airport Imperial Airways (the predecessor to British Airways) flew out of in 1929. I love the Internet.
> 
> I should also note while the details are so skimpy as for this to be almost irrelevant, I took some liberties with the nature of civilian commercial aircraft of the time.

The trip from Paris to Berlin is thirteen hours if Jack drives a little too fast and they don't stop for lunch. Stretched out over two days, the journey becomes civilized. Over three, charming. Jack always goes for charming. At least where Annie is concerned. He tries anyway.

They'd flown in to Paris from Croydon and Jack had, had to stop himself from constantly apologizing to her for the journey being less than wondrous, because, of course, for her it was. And while Jack might have felt some disappointment that he couldn't show her what flight and speed and the sky were really like, there was something to be said for being in the air, for being closer to home with her. He reached for her hand when the plane began to taxi.

"Scared?" she asked and winked at him.

He tossed his head back and laughed but she had turned again to peer out the window, the receding ground far more interesting than the mere man at her side.

"It's so loud," she said, once she could spare a moment for him.

"Fighters are different," he noted. "You can feel the wind for one."

She gave a closed-mouth smile at that, her eyes crinkling up into moons at the thought of her Jack in a sky full of bullets and a white scarf trailing out behind him. She didn't know if it was like that, didn't know if he had done that. But it seemed likely he might have. The way he always talked about the planes had too much love for lying.

On the descent she frowned, pain clearly pricking her ears.

"It's always like that," Jack had said, so casually she wouldn't even have to take it as reassurance if she didn't want to.

She made a face. "The inside of my mouth itches."

"It's just the air pressure. It'll stop when we're down," Jack said, and she nodded, taking his hand before once again turning toward the window. He couldn't help but lean over her then, curling alongside her for a moment to kiss the back of her neck. He had to close his eyes against the power of her smile in profile and the knowledge that eventually it might well be the very last thing he would remember of her.

A driver met them at the airport and Jack was brash and strange, chattering non-stop to the both of them, lest, she thought, they speak to each other. Of course, she shouldn't have been surprised. It was Jack's work unknown that had brought them here to a week of nights in a four star hotel, and she wouldn't argue that, not really. It was easiest to watch instead and ask questions later, away from the amused driver who didn't say _sir_ as neatly as Annie thought he should and away from Jack's right hand that had settled around the groove of her hip bone as if she were one of his guns.

During the days, the car and its driver, Lieven, she eventually found out, stayed with her, and it felt like being gold under guard. It was unpleasant if she thought about it, but in truth, it was hard not to, at least until she was delivered to a restaurant and told the Captain would be joining her shortly. She almost never saw him wear a uniform.

"Think you can stand to wait three days to see Berlin?" he asked her with that deadly perfect giddy grin of his as he loaded their cases into the hired car's boot.

"What are you planning?" she asked, already laughing and full of suspicion.

"Valleys and vineyards to see. Berlin will be there for a while yet."

"As you will, Jack. But I'm not sleeping in this car, so you better have a plan."

"No plan. Map's in the glove box though," he said opening the door for her. "You're navigating."

"Brilliant," she laughed, half expecting that they'd wind up sleeping under a tree along the road, after fucking in the tall grass and ruining her clothes.

"What do you do?" she asked him in a companionable silence on the first day. There was no timidity in the question, only genuine curiosity.

"How long have you been married to me now?" he asked by way of reply.

"Nine years. How long have you been married to me?"

"Since I laid eyes on you," he said. And it wasn't entirely true, because he hadn't thought of it that way at the time, hadn't thought of it that way when he had proposed or when they'd married or when he had finally taken her to bed, but it was true enough now. As far as Jack was concerned, in their story they'd always been married because that's how he needed the story to be and he had the skill of such things.

"What do you think I do?" he asked jovially.

"Will you tell me if I'm right?"

"If you're right, I won't have to tell you."

Annie slapped his arm, and he grinned at her briefly before turning his attention back to the road.

"I think you're a spy," she blurted, knowing it sounded completely ridiculous and utterly dramatic.

"I'm dashing, but I'm not that dashing," Jack said mildly.

"You are."

Jack chuckled and bit back a retort that while funny, wasn't entirely fair.

"Is this about Lieven?" he asked.

"I had a _guard_, Jack."

"It had nothing to do with your freedom, I hope you understand that."

"Of course I --" she stopped short, having not consciously thought of it that way before. "Of course I do," she said more quietly.

Jack nodded and frowned. "I'm not a spy. I've _never_ been a spy," he said, almost sounding offended.

"All right," she said quietly, not really sure how to proceed and slightly regretful she'd brought it all up. "Are you safe?" she asked.

"Yeah. We are," he said, and spared her a glance. Not angry then, and she was glad.

Off course intentionally, they spent the first night in a farmhouse outside of Dijon. Jack's grin more than his French got them the room and Annie was happy to tear into the bread and cheese set out on the small table.

"Tomorrow we pack food," she said, still chewing.

Jack grinned, knowing that particular bad habit was entirely his fault.

They went to bed before it was even dark.

The second night found them in a monastery, eating rabbit and garden vegetables under the watchful eye of a wooden Virgin Mary.

"You did this intentionally," Annie groused, not entirely able to hide her amusement.

"I should have, certainly," Jack granted her.

Their room was a cell with two small and narrow beds.

"Reminds me of the war," Jack had said into the dark, sitting propped up against the wall, Annie's head on his stomach and his lips briefly chapped from the way he'd fitted his mouth to her.

"Is that --"

"It's fine. Just a little strange," he said, remembering soldiers who had lain against him in similar dark and how they weren't smaller than Ann but just so much more scared that they seemed it. He wondered what she would be like in the face of bombs and realized he'd know sooner than he liked.

"We can't sleep like this," she murmured, clearly drifting off anyway.

"Yeah we can. I'm fine," he said.

"You don't sleep much anyway," she mumbled.

"And I thought you never noticed," Jack teased, playing with her hair.

"I notice everything," she said as indignantly as a half-asleep woman can.

"Good. Get some rest."

In the morning, he let her drive. Many a man might have felt emasculated by it Jack supposed, but she was laughing and he had the window down and air on his face and light and warmth and quiet life. He was happy. Happy enough to wish Berlin wasn't still there, but really, what could you do?

"You look like a cat," she said, cutting into his thoughts.

"What?"

"Sunning yourself and pleased."

"I am pleased."

"You always are."

"I'm more pleased, then."

Annie groaned. "Deliver me. And find that damn map; I think we're lost again."

"Yes ma'am," Jack said, and sighed as he rummaged in the glove box, before adding softly, "I know I am."

Annie smiled, pressing the car just a little bit faster into this life she was never supposed to have. The continent, a husband, decent money and new dresses from Paris. Freedom, a mystery, and a life briefly in the sky. If Jack thought that was worth guarding like gold, who was she, at least today, at least right now, to argue?


End file.
